


what names can bring.

by wolvesandgirls



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Because this ship needed another one, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 23:59:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15376272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolvesandgirls/pseuds/wolvesandgirls
Summary: Saying your soulmates name sets you on fire, veins alight, with a name branded into your skin. It doesn’t escape the both of them that he had said her name first.





	what names can bring.

She whispers his name back to him, and her wrist catches fire. She cries out -- unceremoniously, _unexpectedly_ \-- and the last thing she sees before she clutches her wrist and shuts her eyes is Gleb rushing towards her. Too kind for his own good. So kind that the fates had promised him to her, a girl with no home, no family, no memories.

There’s a warm hand on her shoulder and soft words in her ear and she opens her eyes and sees his name written in red across her veins -- Blood red. _Russia red_.

Gleb.

She looks up to see him staring, jaw slack and she covers her wrist, but the damage is done.

It doesn’t escape the both of them that he had said her name first.

“I- I didn’t,” he starts unsurely, his voice tight. She bites her lip as his hands linger on her arms, flitting and dashing and heartbreaking. He was still young, still hopeful, and Anya somehow knows he dreamt of meeting his soulmate and she imagines in his dreams it was far more romantic than this. A warning over tea, her name and a blank wrist.

His hands fall away from her and cross behind his back. Her stomach turns when she hears his fingers push away the stiff fabric of his uniform to feel at his wrist. Searching for answers where none were to be found.

Her name wasn’t Anya.

It never had been.

“Maybe we can talk about this, _Anya_ ,” he says. There’s such stress on her name, such desperation and desire that she turns from the office, and silently thanks him for not calling out after her.

***

She finds that the informality of it charms her. No patronymic. No surname. Just Gleb.

_Your name, dear?_

_Just Anya._

She lies to keep her hands covered, complains of the cold to wear her gloves through her lessons, and neither of her conmen are curious enough to question her. So long as she stays healthy. So long as dances elegantly.

 _Gleb_.

Her conmen gift her a new name, a complete name, a name from a fairytale. But, it sticks. She starts to believe, and the red on her wrist wears into her skin, her gentle reminder that believing was as dangerous as knowing.

She doesn’t seek him out, doesn’t let herself linger on the cut of his jaw when she passes him in the street, but she sits with him. Dances with him. Remembers Romanovs with him.

She kisses the brand one night and wishes it _were_ him. Real.

_Gleb._

They pass one another in the street one day, and he pushes a small slip of paper into her hands. She smiles when he signs off with his name, as if they weren’t already intimately familiar.

***

His hand slips into hers at the ballet, and he leads her away from the lobby. She shuts her eyes as she falls into step with him. Of course. Of course they had sent him to find her.

He pulls them into a small closet and leaves the door open a crack, enough to let light in, enough to not have her feel trapped. He was always far too kind when it came to the frightened little street sweeper.

Furs and coats cramp the space, heat the air, and Anya flushes at the cut of the suit he’s wearing. How it sits distractingly well around his shoulders, how neat his hair looks, and how even when it’s combed one curl always falls forward. Her hands curl at the memory of his smile when she had first paid an undue amount of attention to that one curl.

He isn’t smiling tonight.

“They’ve sent me here to kill you,” he says, his words quiet, clipped.

“Oh, is that all,” she says, too light for the authority in his voice, how it still trembles. But it’d been so long since she’d been this close, and she likes the smell of him. Earthy. He hadn’t adopted the cologne that gave her headaches, the way Dmitry had. She reaches for his forearms, the silk of her gloves catching ever so slightly on the wool of his suit. “You should at least make time to see the Arc de Triomphe. I’ve heard it’s delightful.”

He stares at her, eyes so deep and bottomless and terrifying. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I always told you finding my family was-”

“Why did you lie to me, _Anya_?”

Because what else was she supposed to do?

She pulls off a glove, and the red -- less bloody now, deeper, warmer -- catches the light. Gleb’s fingertips hesitantly run across his script, across his name branded into her skin, and his breath catches. Such ancient magic was always a marvel, even for one who claimed to have stopped believing in magic a long time ago.

She takes his wrist in her fingers, meeting his eyes as she presses down into his veins. “You know why, Gleb,” she says. She looks up at him, up at his big brown eyes and the curl of hair that’s fallen onto his forehead. She reaches, brushes it away.

“They just gave me a name, and it was all I knew until...” Until it had started to make sense. Fit into holes and gaps like mud. Drying, solidifying, until it felt… Real.

As real as cellar walls.

As real as hunger.

As real as red on her wrist.

She leans up and kisses him softly, an echo of a promise they once made under a bridge in Leningrad. “You look so handsome, Gleb.”

“You always look beautiful, Anya,” and his eyes flick down to his wrist before he looks at her heavily. A romantic, to the very end. His hand cups her cheek, and her eyes fall shut. Like the first time -- a brush of fingertips against her skin, moments before he shared his name with her, moments before her skin was set alight.

“I want you to come home,” he whispers, and his voice overwhelms her in its intensity. He was too young to be like this, frightened and frightening in his soulmates arms. He swallows, his hand clutching hers. “If they found you as a girl, it could be _any_ name.”

“Then say it. Just once. Say it.”

His lip trembles, and she lets herself believe he will. He’ll say a name -- a name she was equally terrified of -- and his skin will catch red with fire and he’ll sink into her arms.

He says nothing.

The tickle of fur against the back of her neck makes her stomach turn, and she steps away. Out of his arms, out of his embrace, and she swallows around the lump in her throat. Pulling her glove back on, adjusting it needlessly, she glances up at Gleb. She can’t read him as he stares down at her, but he shuts his eyes, fists clenched by his side.

“At the end of the day, I will obey my orders.”

“And I will obey my heart,” she says evenly. She lets her fingers brush against him as she leaves the room. “Long life, Gleb. I pray we don’t meet again.”

***

He crumbles to the floor, and she feels like she is taking her first breath. Again. _Again_.

Oxygen dizzies her, rushes through her blood and leaves her feeling lightheaded, the clatter of a gun on marble still echoing in the room, in her ears, in red-stained memories starting to dim back to grey. She holds herself steady, her hand against her chest, her pounding heart, and his soft sobs make her wrist cry out in pain.

She takes a hesitant first step towards him, heels sounding too loud in the room, and his sobs cease, plunging them into a paralyzing silence. Her hands shake as they run through his hair, and when he leans into her touch, she falls to the floor, her body heavy with ache and exhaustion. She wants to despise him, spit at him, but she takes his trembling, useless hands, pulling them to her.

He knew. And she wouldn’t have to rush to his side.

He looks up at her, eyes red and wet with tears. She bites her lip, as he leans his forehead against hers. “I-” and he squeezes her hands so tight, she thinks they’ll both stop breathing. “I believe you are Anastasia.”

She shuts her eyes as his face scrunches up in pain, a guttural groan lodging itself in his throat before he finally cries out, falling into her skirts. He sobs, and Anya’s heart breaks as she holds his shaking body, his words burying into the folds of the dress.

She finds his wrist, still hot, still burning and pulls it to her, glittering in golden cursive. She runs her finger along the name -- so lost and unfamiliar. Assigned from birth, so it seemed, and it only took a country falling to its knees for them to meet.

She kisses the brand on his skin, while it’s still hot, while it still burns her lips. “It’s Anya,” she says softly. He takes a breath, looking up at her, and she swallows a sob. Paris had aged him, had forced him to grow up.

But he still looked at her like she was a street sweeper who held the sun in her palms.

He sits up, his hands hesitantly brushing her fingers before clutching the fabric of his trousers. “Any- _Anastasia_. I do-”

“I know, Gleb,” she cups his face in her hand, and he freezes for a moment, his eyes meeting hers cautiously. She nods and he relaxes into her, his hand brushing against her glove before falling to his lap again. She bites her lip, waxy lipstick staining her teeth. “But, Anya disagrees. I've no interest in being a Grand Duchess.”

“They’ll kill you if you go back,” he says softly, and her heart breaks for her homeland, the forests and trees and stones that had raised her, forged her into someone who could leave it behind. She had known, but the weight of the promise bears down on her.

“You as well.” She runs her thumb across his cheek. “They’ll send a firing squad before you’ve even crossed the border.”

“Don’t you want them to?”

Her throat burns as she pulls away from him sharply. “How could you-”

“Sorry isn’t enough, Anya,” he says quietly. His shaking fingers curl around his knees, knuckles turning white, a slope of gold curls around his wrist, catching the light. He looks up at her, face as pale as his hands. “You don’t deserve someone who- You deserve better than me.”

Anya pulls her glove away, revealing his name, so red and worn that it practically felt like skin these days. She brings his hand next to hers, his wrist still shining and golden, so fresh and new he can’t tear his eyes away.

“Did you mean what you said? Under the bridge?”

He balls his fists before taking her hand in his, covering his name with his fingers. “My actions today, I- I’m- I can’t-”

“Gleb,” she whispers -- like the first time -- and her wrist burns again. She wants a life that is more than just a name.

He meets her eyes, hands gripping hers tightly. “Of course.”

“Then I don’t see any harm in a friendly drink,” she breathes, her hands warm, her words soft. She smiles, leaning into him gently. “There’s a café just steps from here.”

He bites his lip, and for a moment her heart stops for his. Her breath catches, locks itself in her lungs, as he looks down at the cursive script on his wrist. His thumb runs across it. “Do you still trust me?”

She breathes. Again.

“Enough to try, Gleb.”

***

Under a bridge in Leningrad, sleeves rolled up, their skin turned grey in the icy winds. His name, so bold and red, scripted on her wrist. His, bare and empty. A reminder that she was a half-girl, a street sweep, a pretend princess. No combination that equalled true happiness, and her shaking hand curled into a fist.

“I’ll still love you,” he told her desperately. He took her cold hands in his, and her heart stopped for a moment. She felt the heat of his touch, the heat of his promises, deep inside of her veins. “Even if there’s a mistake, or I wasn’t meant to be with you. It’s _you_ , Anya. I care about you.”  
  
“What if a name appears one day and you don’t like it?” she asked quietly, her voice as sharp as diamonds. She looked down at their entwined fingers, and her heart raced at what laid ahead -- home, love, family. Betrayal. Heartbreak. “Or- or if nothing ever appears.”

His hand touched her cheek, tilted her face to him, and there was reverence in his crooked smile. Anya’s breath caught as her cold hands crawled up his arms, his shoulders, red caught in the corner of her eye. She pulled him towards her, his wind-chapped lips meeting hers gently, her name -- a given name, of sorts -- tasting like honey, like butter, like tea leaves on the tip of his tongue.

“Anya,” he whispered against her lips.

The name tasted real.

**Author's Note:**

> I was in a very soft Glenya mood when I wrote the first draft of this, so it definitely... comes across that way, but mostly I’m procrastinating working on The Soulmate AU™️ by writing other soulmate aus. Save me from myself, I beg of you.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr [here](https://wolves-girls.tumblr.com)!


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